Scolari plays down Drogba impact – who is he kidding?

I’m going to make this relatively brief today, because I have often commented on this blog that I consider Didier Drogba Chelsea’s most important player. This view hasn’t changed and I don’t want to bore you with the same views again.

 

However, something riled me slightly last night after the narrow victory over CFR Cluj in the Champions League. Earlier, Drogba had come of the bench and scored the goal which helped Chelsea stumble into the last 16 of the competition. The striker’s influence was there for all to see and he gave the team a new dimension, a new belief and a new impetuous.

 

Everyone in the ground knew that Drogba had made the difference. Chelsea were looking rather short on ideas until the Ivory Coast man came on.

 

However, speaking after the game, Luiz Felipe Scolari seemed to play down the impact that the striker had on the game. Despite the fact that Drogba played a huge part in securing Chelsea’s first home win since the beginning of November, Scolari couldn’t quite bring himself to heap to much praise on the player.

 

The Chelsea boss did describe Drogba as ‘one of the best in the world’, but this was merely a brief passing comment. Scolari’s focus was instead on ensuring that people knew that Nicolas Anelka is his main striker right now.

 

He said that ‘our scorer is Anelka’ and proceeded to remind everyone that his team haven’t done too badly considering Drogba has only played 11 times this season. This may well be the case, but I think it is fair to say that if Drogba didn’t play again this season, the football odds wouldn’t fancy Scolari’s men to conquer in Europe.

 

There may not be too much to read into Scolari’s comments, I just found it bizarre that he was being so defensive. We all know that Anelka has done well in recent weeks and we all know that Chelsea are a more threatening team at the highest level when Drogba is playing. Why not just admit that? Why is there the need to defend Anelka when praising Drogba?

 

Chelsea captain John Terry told it more like it is. He said that it was a ‘great boost’ to have Drogba back and that he is a ‘great dimension’ for the team. These are the views echoed by everyone—other than Scolari, whose opinion is likely to have the most impact on Drogba.

 

Chelsea can’t afford to lose Drogba during January, because he is irreplaceable in terms of the team’s ambitions this season. Something that makes Scolari’s nervy and defensive comments even more bizarre.

 

Thoughts?

 

By Thomas Rooney - A sports writer who blogs about football betting